Victims of Despair
by Sullys Sidekick
Summary: April 2011 short story challenge. *AR* The idea is to combine certain photos in a logical way. Screen cap 1 - Michaela, in a blue dress, is bound and gagged to a wooden pillar.  Screen cap 2 - Sully, shirtless, embraces an emotionally distraught Michaela.


Victims of Despair

By: Tess Thieler

April 2011 DQ Challenge

The last thing Michaela remembered was entering the barn to tack up Flash... but she never made it. Lost happily in dreamland, her mind focused on her lunch date with her future groom, then everything went black. As she became conscious of her surroundings, her vision revealed that she was possibly in a barn - a very dark barn, but it obviously wasn't hers.

Bound and gagged, she felt her back pressing into the rough hewn surface of a wooden pillar. Even her ankles were tethered. Shaking off a sleepy stupor, Michaela willed her mind to focus. Anger and fear erupted from within and each fought to dominate the other. Her muffled screams for help went unheard and her insistent struggles to free herself proved fruitless. Hungry, tired, and sore, she helplessly leaned her weight into the unforgiving wooden post prickling her back. How did she get here? A better question would be "who" brought her here, and "why"?

The miniscule amount of daylight seeping through the cracks in the cut timber walls revealed very little. Although she sensed a musty odor within her cold and dank surroundings, she couldn't determine the source. With her body physically exhausted, Michaela allowed her mind to try to piece things together. Searching through years of patients, she came up with no names who would be so disgruntled with her care that they would return to do her harm. No one in her memory qualified to bear such a grudge that would go this far for revenge. Not even Hank or Jake were cruel enough to play such an evil prank. Were they? She dismissed those musings wishing it really was a prank. Then she could tell her heart to slow its frenetic pace. Wishful thinking, that's what it was. Waiting for the immediate future to unfold mirrored pure torture.

Footsteps.

Yes, she heard them as sure as she could hear her own pulse. Closer and closer they approached. The time to face her captor had come. On the wall before her of this dirty prison a hodge-podge wooden door creaked open allowing a large tall figure to enter into the darkness. Michaela tried not to let the fear she felt show in her eyes. She set her jaw and glared in her captor's direction. Unable to make out the face, his slight chuckle sounded familiar. Turning his back to her, he proceeded to slide an object across the surface of a makeshift table.

"Chloroform," he stated aloud. "It worked well on you."

So that's how he kidnapped her! Michaela became enraged.

"I figured you'd be wondering."

She made no sound.

"Michaela," he uttered sweetly as he neared her.

Her mind reeled, certain that she indeed recognized this voice.

"I just can't go on living without you. I haven't slept since learning of your impending wedding date to another man." His palm slammed angrily against something wooden. "I" should be that man!" Seconds later, the strike of a match gave a mere flicker of light until her captor lit a lantern and hung it on another post, immediately granting the lady doctor access to his hidden identity.

David?

David!

The war, the many surgeries and long recoveries, then losing her a second time must have pushed him over the edge. Terror filtered into her brain as she realized she now dealt with a madman. No Michaela, she silently attempted to console herself. Stay calm. Think.

As the colleague from her past neared her, the flame from the lantern glinted off the blade of a knife he held in his hand. Her heart raced with intimidation as she struggled to keep her wits about her. THIS man she did not know. As David stooped to her side, she felt his whiskey-tainted breath fan across her face. His knife neared her throat. In the next heartbeat, she felt the coolness of its blade press against her skin just before the weapon's sharp edge ripped through the material gag muffling her scream. David didn't even seem to notice the horror he just put her through. Like the blade, his demeanor was cold and calculating. Lacking empathy with anything, but its own existence. She remembered how Dorothy's own son acted out of character after serving in the war. Is there no help for these once noble soldiers?

David took great care when he removed the material from her mouth before tossing it to the floor.

Michaela swallowed hard as she fought for courage. "David, please let me help you."

"You already are."

"There are medications-"

"I know all about those and how they can numb the brain until all feeling is gone. No, Michaela. I only need you, to be with me."

The doctor in her focused on the task of not angering him. No telling what he would do to her. "I'm here now," she uttered with as much calm in her tone as she could fathom.

"Yes... you are," he stated gently, "and how lovely you look for our union. Soon, we'll be together... for eternity"

Union? Michaela's eyes widened.

"How nice for you to wear blue," he continued. " You know it's my favorite color." He grinned confidently at her then and stretched his large frame out on the floor to settle his head onto her lap, facing her.

Michaela tried hard not to flinch. Her goal to undermine her captor, to get him to let his guard down, to gain his trust so she can hopefully escape somehow, must stay foremost in her mind.

Keeping the knife clutched tightly in his hand with four fingers, David used his thumb to trace her chin, her shoulder, then finally down her arm. "Still so beautiful," he murmured with a contented sigh and nestled his head more comfortably. In minutes, the lack of sleep his body so desperately needed took over.

Ignoring the sleeping man she once knew, Michaela's eyes searched the now dimly lit building. Barrels of gunpowder littered the hay-covered area. An icy chill washed over her when she realized what David meant by being "together for eternity." All the supplies to cause instantaneous death with the drop of a match were already here!

The sudden coo of a mourning dove filled her heart with immediate hope. Sully! He must have tracked David here from her barn when she didn't show up for their lunch date. Grateful for his consistent watchfulness over her, she prepared herself for anything.

The low creaking of the makeshift door preceded the silent moccasin footsteps of her fiancé. Shirtless, with a band about his forehead, Sully resembled an Indian more than the mountain man she had come to adore. Michaela parted her lips to speak, but Sully coaxed her to silence with a finger to his lips as he neared her captor still clutching the knife. Grasping a two finger hold onto the knife's exposed handle, her rescuer attempted to slide the weapon free. David stirred. In one unexpected motion, the larger man lunged at Sully, pinning him to the floor.

"No Indian is going to touch MY woman!" David bit out in a disoriented slur. As they wrestled for control, the band on Sully' s head dislodged onto David's hand. The distraction was enough to allow Sully to spring to his feet and draw his own knife.

David lunged again, but Sully shifted with panther-like swiftness and his attacker fell onto several barrels of gunpowder. One barrel broke open sending loose powder to the floor. Hastily rising to his feet, David grasped a half consumed whiskey bottle and hurled it. Sully ducked and the bottle shattered against a wall, dousing a barrel of gunpowder before trailing onto the floor.

In the next breath, Sully tackled David, catching him off balance. The tall man fell backward, hitting his head against the post where the lantern hung. The force jarred the knife free from his hand as the lantern crashed to the floor. David slumped into an unconscious heap as a whiskey puddle instantaneously ignited, threatening the many barrels of gunpowder.

Michaela and Sully called out for each other as he dodged the leaping flames to reach her. They didn't have much time. Once Sully cut the bonds securing Michaela's hands and feet, he thrust her into his arms then darted out the door. Moving as fast as his legs would allow him to carry her, they barely made it to a safe distance before the blast behind them forced them to the ground. Sully hovered over his bride-to-be, protecting her from the wood shards and debris falling about them. Glancing back at the violent inferno, he breathed a sigh of relief then gathered a very weary and emotionally exhausted Michaela into the security of his arms.

"Oh, Sully..."

"Shhhh, I'm here now. You're safe." He leaned his cheek against her head for comfort. The details could wait.

A few tears escaped her control. "Oh Sully, as a doctor... I failed," she gasped with ragged breath. "I-I couldn't save him from himself. Despair has done terrible things to his mind."

Her husband-to-be hugged her tighter. "You can't save the world, Michaela." He drew her even more snuggly against his chest and planted a grateful kiss upon her temple. "I'm just glad I got here in time... to save mine."


End file.
